


Be Mine (Jumpin Jesus, Holy Cow)

by frey



Category: 30 Rock
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frey/pseuds/frey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five perspectives on season four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Mine (Jumpin Jesus, Holy Cow)

**Title:** Be Mine (Jumpin Jesus, Holy Cow)  
 **Author:** [](http://frey-at-last.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://frey-at-last.livejournal.com/)**frey_at_last**  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Tags:** 30 Rock, Pete/Liz friendship, Jack/Other, Jack/Liz  
 **Spoilers:** "Pilot," "Hiatus," "Cooter," "Reunion," "Mamma Mia," "Season Four," "Dealbreakers Talk Show," "Black Light Attack," "Secret Santa," "Anna Howard Shaw Day" (yes, AND MORE)  


 **Summary:** Five perspectives on season four.

* * *

i. _from the very first moment_

Things haven't been the same between Liz and Paula since the intercoursing hoax.

This becomes clear when Pete invites Liz to their house for Christmas. Liz is a little overly apologetic about anything and everything (she apologizes six times for bringing the wrong size pan of store-bought apple pie, until Pete wonders if she's mixed up his wife with that anal-retentive grandma from that awkward photo website) and Paula apparently thinks she has an all access pass to Liz's love life -- which is, in fact, something Pete can usually take a moderate interest in, since Liz is one of his oldest friends. But not when it involves Jack Donaghy.

Pete thinks he should have started noticing something around the time Jack Donaghy had his heart attack. Which was really a _long_ time before anything happened that he could tell, years ago already, but if he'd been paying attention, keeping his ear to the ground, instead of trying to smooth over the whole vasectomy thing with Paula, he thinks he should have noticed it then.

As it happened, though, he didn't think anything until Donaghy left for Washington, which was when he noticed that he was seeing a lot more of Liz than he'd gotten used to -- suddenly she was always in her office, like she had come back from somewhere he hadn't even realized she'd been all this time. They were walking down to set on the day it clicked in and he noticed, and he'd given Liz a friendly elbow to the stomach. "Hey, you're here more often! That's weird. Cool weird."

"I'm what? I'm here all the _time_ , Pete." She slung his arm out of her way and kept walking. "Geez, you're a doof."

It wasn't that she'd really changed. But it was also true that Liz used to spend a lot more time in Pete's office, or Pete in Liz's office, sharing red vines and Pete telling her about how his father-son bonding time with Kyle had gone horribly wrong and made Paula set up these parental controls on the TV that were seriously impacting Pete's Saturday mornings, and not for the better... Those were good times, he thought.

Anyway, it wasn't like Pete couldn't come talk to her when he wanted, but half the time when he dropped by her office she wasn't in it; he had to use her phone to call up to the 52nd floor, and wait for Jonathan to patch him through. It wasn't the same. And Jonathan is a really strange guy.

He remembered what Jack had said the first time they met him -- something about changing things that are already good just to make them your own. It wasn't hard to see that this was Jack's philosophy of life. Pete was more the kind of guy to get stuck in a rut. But he was fond of some parts of that rut. So while Jack was in D.C. and he had Liz all to himself, it was a kinda fun three months for Pete. But even though for most of that time they were on summer hiatus, wow, was Liz having a rough time with Devon and Kathy Geiss in control.

"It's just the _worst ever_ , Pete!" She ground a muffin into her napkin as Pete sunk down onto the arm of the couch. "I can't believe he's making us _do_ this."

Pete shrugged. "I know it. Even Jack Donaghy gave us an easier time about the pirate fetus sketch."

"Chyeah. Jack."

She didn't say anything else, which was weird, but he saw she was busy scraping back up the muffin crumbs so they didn't go to waste.

"Have you heard from him at all? I bet he's enjoying his neocon orgy."

"Ha! Yeah, as if. An orgy of old dudes in headsuits. Taking off their headsuits. Naked heads." She did manage to stop herself. "Oh, boy."

"Have to say I didn't think of it that way."

"Well, anyway. I do hear from him, every so often. Couple times a week, maybe."

Pete was honestly surprised. "A couple of times a week? Jack Donaghy?" He'd known they were friendly, friends even, but Pete is friends with Liz and when he took Paula and the kids to Rhode Island for three weeks that one spring, Liz definitely did not call him more than twice -- and those were only for Jenna emergencies. Okay, maybe it is different since he has a family, and Donaghy and Liz are both single, both no kids, both truly obsessed with their jobs... oh, sweet Lord.

Liz had picked up again while he was gaping. "Is that a lot? I mean, like, in the past week -- since Monday, he called on Tuesday afternoon to ask me about who supplied my hot water and if I was on propane, since there had been these fires. And then that night I called about something else, and then just Thursday he called once, and this morning, because of a thing... That's only, what. Three times."

It was four, but Pete was too busy processing. He's pretty sure his mouth was wide open. "So no orgies."

"No, definitely no orgies. Gross. Do you want my grapes? I don't eat the green ones."

She passed him the plastic container and Pete popped one in and rolled it around his cheek. Toofer stuck his head through the door and asked Liz something that made her fall over her desk and hobble-sprint into the other room to yell at Frank, and Pete slowly finished the stalk of grapes. Well, huh. Jack Donaghy. Huh.

After that it didn't come up for a long time, and Pete got less and less interested in the odd, potentially disturbing friendship between Liz and his boss, and more and more consumed by his growing conviction that life was a dull and meaningless parade of dwindling college savings accounts and Paula's fixation on parent-teacher conferences.

It isn't until Christmas rolls around -- how many years later? two? six? -- that Pete is again confronted with the possibility of Jack and Liz as a _thing_ , and it's only thanks to Paula.

Liz is over for Christmas dinner, having bailed on her usual holiday at her parents' house. ("But not because I'm getting my revenge. Just because I haven't gotten paid since I bought the other apartment, and I can't afford a plane ticket.") They are sitting in the living room watching Christmas cartoons until the kids doze off in their miniature Dockers and snowflake-patterned sweaters, and then _An Affair to Remember_ on one of those dodgammed movie channels that is apparently devoted to Cary Grant. Pete notices that Liz keeps pulling out her phone and surreptitiously texting, but he figures she's probably checking in with her family. Who else would she have to talk to, on Christmas, of all days?

Paula grabs him in the kitchen. "Who does Liz know named Jack?" she demands, quietly enough that he can tell she's trying not to be overheard.

"Uh, Jack Donaghy, our boss," Pete says.

"Jack Donaghy? The guy who got us the microwave?"

"Yeah, it's gotta be. _Unless_ \-- " Pete gasps. "Not the new guy! His real name is Jack!"

"He has a fake name?"

"Jack renamed him. But it can't be _Danny!_ He's Canadian, for God's sake!"

Paula's eyes narrow and don't get any wider through the rest of their movie-and-dessert time. He can tell she's going to pounce -- he can only pray it won't be him.

Sure enough, when Pete finishes carrying the last kid to bed and gets back to the living room, he distinctly hears Paula whispering with Liz in the kitchen. "And you don't have anything going on with him?" she's asking.

"No, of course not. He's my friend, and we're... close friends." Liz sounds awkward, backed into a corner. Considering their friendship, he should walk in and rescue her.

But Pete has been in that corner one too many times. He stays behind the wall.

"Close enough he can't go a few hours without talking to you? Liz, I think there might be something _more_ going on here." Liz is quiet, and when she speaks, to Pete's horror, he hears the hesitation in her voice that is a clear signal that she's being honest.

"I don't think he feels that way, Paula. It's... not a thing. It's been this way for a long time."

Paula's tone of voice is like when she braces herself to rip a bandaid off their littlest guy. "But you want it to be, right? So you should get him on board or move on, hun."

"No, I couldn't. I mean, I don't even want to. He's a really good friend to me. I don't want to give that up."

The floor creaks under Pete's feet, making the women fall silent. He winces and rubs a hand over the top of his head. The feeling of his wedding ring as it rasps over what's left of his hair is strangely comforting, and Pete decides to tuck in the kids one more time and give Paula another minute or two.

Robert and Kaleb are breathing in their bunk beds, still dressed in their holiday outfits, sock-footed and more peaceful than they ever are when conscious. Moving closer to the bed, Pete traces the rungs of the ladder, waiting until he can no longer hear the murmur of voices in the kitchen.

Later, when they've said goodbye to Liz and Paula is filling up the dishwasher, Pete takes up his place at the sink and starts rinsing off the plates. "Liz offered to babysit the kids if we want to go out for New Year's," she tells him. He hands her a salad fork.

"I miss Gary," Pete sighs. It's proof of their nearly twenty year marriage that Paula doesn't ask him what he means.

 

 

ii. _knock me over, stone cold sober_

Danny was surprised to learn about Jack's feelings for Liz Lemon, but as he got more familiar with the way of things at TGS, it kinda made sense.

As the weeks went by, he'd settled into a routine. He would show up in the morning, eat a breakfast muffin with his new crew buddies, get a text from Jenna (at turns hostile and intimately soul-baring, or both), figure out when the next rehearsal was, pass Tracy in the hall and introduce himself again, and drop in on the writer's room to suggest stuff for his sketches.

At some point during the day, he'd see Jack coming out of the elevator, or going into Liz's office, or he'd try to ask Liz about a rabbit-Hitler costume while she was on the phone, usually pretty angry. Danny doesn't consider himself an unusually intuitive guy (which is obvious, since he was totally clueless about Jack's feeling to begin with) but he's a good listener, and he can often tell by Liz's voice when she gets Jack on the other end of the line.

As often as she gets stressed out, and irritated at Jack, and will openly complain to him about things (even when the person she's complaining about is well within hearing distance -- which makes Danny nervous, even if in New York that isn't considered as rude as it is in Ottawa), Danny can tell that it makes her feel better to talk to him. And even though Danny knows she's a very successful and self-sufficient kind of woman, sometimes she'll slump down in a chair for a minute and sigh and be quiet and then say, "so where are you?", and Danny knows that Jack is on the other end.

On other days, they'll be sitting in the writer's room, working out a sketch, and Danny will be watching Liz at her end of the table, when out of the blue her face will light up -- not quite with a smile, but with something -- and that's how he knows it's Jack coming through the door.

Danny is happy to say he doesn't get jealous. He and Jack are still buddies, and their courtside bonding has gotten even more amiable now that he swaps stories about people who aren't Liz. He wants the best for Liz, and he wants the best for Jack, and what's great is that, with him out of the way, they can find that together. Eventually, he's sure they will.

He shares this with Jack a month or so after the breakup, at the tail end of that week's after-party.

"I'm sorry," Jack says, "I didn't hear you." The music isn't that loud where they are, but Jack has more than a few drinks in him.

Danny rests his hand on Jack's shoulder and leans in. "I said, I really hope you and Liz work everything out. You know, once you tell her. I think you'll be really happy."

Jack's eyes narrow quizzically. Then he relaxes, his head nodding in a loose circle. "Thank you, yes. I am sure you're right. Liz and I."

"Do you think you're going to tell her?" Danny scans the crowd for Liz and, glancing over, realizes that Jack has already found her. With his eyes fixed across the floor, Jack's expression goes a little soft, then blank.

"I'm gonna call her over here," Jack says, pushing his glass into Danny's free hand. "Or go over there. You chillax, Dan the man."

(Another thing Danny has learned: Jack will attempt to take on Liz's verbal habits when he's past a certain level of intoxication.)

Danny watches Jack make his way across the room, his usual confident stride only a little inhibited by the alcohol in his system. He really couldn't be more different from Liz, Danny realizes, not for the first time. He thinks he sees Liz start to turn, but right as Jack is poised to call out and get her attention, Tracy appears out of nowhere and seizes Jack's arm. He makes several just barely comprehensible gestures -- a cobra? a goat? -- and seems to be pulling Jack toward the control room. "Come on, Jack," Danny mutters.

Just when it seems like the spark of Jack's resolve has been smothered for good, Liz intervenes, stepping around Tracy with an earnest look on her face, and then -- woah, running a hand up Jack's back. Danny stands up straighter and wipes a hand on his jeans. From where he's standing, Danny can't see Jack's face, but he leans down to say something right into Liz's ear. Whatever goes on, in another few moments Tracy is calm and putting his thumb in his mouth. Jack and Liz have moved further away from each other, but they're engrossed in conversation.

Danny watches them for a minute, for enough time to give himself a modest mental pat on the back. When Jack says something that makes Liz laugh, her expression transformed in a genuine, gorgeous smile, Danny turns away and empties the rest of Jack's shot glass in one gulp. Ouch.

He's lucky it makes him feel so good to do things for other people. It must be his upbringing.

 

iii. _sunday, monday, day or night_

Avery Jessup didn't get where she is without a lot of street smarts. Obviously street smarts takes on a unique meaning when it refers to succeeding amongst and sleeping with powerful east coast Republicans, but if anything this augments and certainly does not diminish her savviness.

Avery knows men. Avery knows men like Jack Donaghy through and through, and therefore she easily discovers that Jack has several women on the backburner: an easy swap if his infatuation with Avery creates too much friction. The most obvious place to start is his recent calls list (accessed while he is in the shower and after she's correctly guessed his Blackberry password: "blackfordoates").

First is "Nancy D," which might be a code name, if Jack is dating a red-headed coed with a blue convertible or a private investigator (or some remarkable combination of these), but as far as she can tell, Nancy isn't a big player. He hasn't called her in a couple of weeks, and her name isn't even listed in his received calls.

Second, third, and fourth are "Diana R," "Natalie P," and "Audrey H." Fifth is Liz Lemon.

Initially, Liz didn't even rank; on the ride to the oral surgeon's, Jack clarified that this employee was also a friend of his, but considering that the woman couldn't even get someone to pick her up from the doctor's on Valentine's Day, of all days, Avery didn't think to consider her a rival.

Now, she's not so sure.

Liz stays asleep for a good fifteen minutes, during which time Jack moves around her apartment, setting a glass of water on her nightstand and taping her cooking knives into their storage rack.

"How long is it gonna take you to baby proof this apartment, Jack?" Avery asks, joking. But Jack gestures apologetically and lays his jacket on the arm of the couch.

"I just want to get her settled in, Avery. I'm sorry about this -- I'm going to wake her up in a minute and tell her what the nurses said about fluids."

So he does. But he keeps the bedroom door open, leaving Avery little choice but to eavesdrop on the entire exchange. After he's carefully read off the list of unacceptable foods:

"You can stay if you wanna," Liz says. Jack doesn't laugh, but Avery can hear the amusement in his voice. "I don't think I'd be too comfortable on your couch, Lemon."

"Then stay on the floor, Donaghy."

"I'm afraid of lying down on this carpet. I might roll into that pile of half-eaten Handi-Snacks. And where did you get _Dunkaroos_? They haven't manufactured those since the _mid-nineties_!"

"But what if I get up to do my business and I hallucinate a bathroom out the window?"

"Wow. Now that's a great sell if I've ever heard one. Liz, just lay back, let yourself relax... I'm sure you'll be fine once you get a little sleep." Avery hears the rustle of sheets and risks a peek around the corner of the door frame. Jack is sitting on the side of the bed with his palm covering Liz's forehead, his expression disarmingly gentle. "Besides," he adds, "you know how I snore."

"Dude, I don't even care," Liz says.

"Okay, then I don't want to listen to _you_ snore."

Liz laughs a little, but she is probably starting to lose consciousness again, because they lapse into a long silence. In the living room, Avery checks her watch and considers turning on the TV for cover noise. But it might be too loud, and make Liz come out and pet her hair again...

The bed squeaks and Avery makes sure she's nowhere near the bedroom door. But apparently Jack is just rearranging, not getting up to leave. This is becoming truly awkward. Should Avery leave? No; she is more than capable of rising above it. True, she's never accompanied any of her aging power brokers on their trips to care for their devastatingly lonely employees, but she once monitored a debate between Bill Kristol and Janet Jackson where much more uncomfortable things happened -- and that was on national television.

"I'm sorry I messed up your A-game," Liz is saying, a little more slurry than before.

"It's all right," Jack says. "You didn't."

"I saw Floyd and Dennis in there, but I'm think now it was just a halli-- hallunization. Then I was fine."

"Oh, yes, you seem very alert."

"I guess I kinda Lemoned up your Valentine's, huh."

"Lemon, I would have come if I'd been enjoying a Valentine's with the Iron Lady herself."

"Oh, Jack." She pauses, maybe passes out for a moment. "But don't make me think about you and Margaret Thatcher ever again."

There aren't even any dots to connect, honestly. Avery will probably continue seeing Jack for as long as he asks -- she rates her intelligence and (to be direct but not tasteless) her body above Liz Lemon's, not to mention a certain _savoir faire_ \-- all of which she believes gives her a sufficient edge. Jack might be a good guy, and is obviously capable of an alluring level of devotion, but Avery doesn't deceive herself: this game is about maintaining an acceptable ratio of satisfaction to prestige. With at least four other women in the running, she'll be keeping an eye on things, for sure. Let's just say she'll withdraw before she's disqualified.

But Avery knows men like Jack, and she knows herself. He may think he has a good hand -- but it's Avery's house, and the house always wins.

 

 

iv. _what's the difference, anyhow_

Definitely the most awful thing that has happened to Liz Lemon in the past six months is that she's found herself very probably in love with her best friend.

If she were to confess this to any of her other friends, they could not be more astonished than she is. Even though, if she were brutally honest, she might admit that there's probably always been a tiny part of her that considered him in that way, she'd successfully suppressed it for more than three years. But out of nowhere, everything changed. It was literally like waking up one morning and realizing while brushing her teeth that what she really, mostly wanted to do that day was see Jack.

Maybe it wasn't just one morning. Okay, waking up on a sequence of mornings and realizing this, throughout the whole process of tooth-brushing and hair-drying and clothes-putting-on. Then collecting her stuff and riding the subway and avoiding getting gum stuck in her hair (a side effect of subway riding she just can't explain).

But she'll be there, on the subway, and she'll think of something she wants to say to him. Not like she bores Jack with a long narrative of her every thought whenever she actually sees him (right? she doesn't do that), but she does think of him as the main person in her life who would actually be interested in hearing about it.

This feeling keeps coming back, day after day, this winter. Last spring Jack was with Elisa, and Liz was completely fine. Now, every time he talks about his crushes, she feels like taking her bag of scripts and going home. The writers can talk to her on Gmail chat or something.

It used to be that she just rolled her eyes at Jack's choice of women. She wanted him to be happy, sure, but when he seemed pretty satisfied with almost anybody almost instantly, she couldn't complain as long as his chosen lady wasn't a gold-digger or a murderess. Now that's all different. She hates the idea of Jack spending his life with some woman who doesn't even know him that well -- who can't possibly know him well. Because Jack doesn't reveal himself to that many people, and even his girlfriends don't get very far. She doesn't think he lets them.

But she knows him well. She knows him and she loves him, and now she can't stand the idea of Jack settling for a lady who doesn't like him for who he is, or doesn't know all the parts of him he hides. She wants the best for him.

What's even more terrible: she wants him for herself.

It's gotten so nothing else in her daily life feels as important as this, but she knows that telling him would be the stupidest thing she could possibly do. She's never pursued a guy while already in love with him. If she has been in love before (and she's not totally sure that she has been) she's tried to act on it at the crush stage, or tried to keep them from leaving her for other women in their clown program, but she's never walked up to someone and just said, I love you, please choose me. The idea of saying that to Jack, to her closest friend, is enough to make her feel sick to her stomach. There's no way, no way in the world, that she could muster up that confidence. All the idiot choices that she's made in life up until now would look super smart, compared to that. It would be smarter to move to Cleveland or marry Dennis or stay single or fall in love with her cousin than do _that_.

At night she tries to laugh it off and fill her head with the pleasant (and completely sensible) chatter of fake news. Stephen Colbert is a totally acceptable substitute for Jack Donaghy in her life. Sure, maybe if Jack were here, he might learn to like Stephen and Jon and Rachel (okay, probably not Rachel) and they would sit here, not having to talk, just two people in their pajamas enjoying funny TV and fancy cheesy pasta, like her previous decent relationships -- but cheesy pasta is not the be all end all of life. There are other things.

She wants to think about it enough to talk herself out of it, but not enough for her bad self-esteem thoughts to take over. To be honest, she can't help thinking about it, and, even though it's so embarrassing to admit, she likes just thinking about _him_ \-- but she's afraid of letting it take over her head.

Reasons it wouldn't work: it would be the worst timing ever, when Jack is basically dating not one but two women, and both appeal to those parts of his past or his politics that she can't compete with. She wouldn't just be asking him to give her a chance: she'd be asking him to give up his other chances. She would be asking him to bet on her, to choose her. She doesn't have the right to ask him to do that.

But some small part of her thinks she _does_ have that right. Because she and Jack have a friendship and a bond, and many, many times over the years that they've been friends, they've asked each other for things. There's no one else who knows her like Jack does -- doesn't that mean something? And there's no one else who cares about Jack like she does. They owe things to each other, but could this really be one of them?

Or she could ask, and he could say no.

And yeah, this is the other reason she really doesn't want to think about it.

She thinks the more times she runs through it in her head, the higher the probability of failure. That's not logical, but none of this is very logical. That Jack would be interested in her, when he's spent so much of his time and effort trying to make her less plain, less awkward, less old, is pretty much laughable. He's seen her throw up, he's heard her sing, he's carried her to bed while she was high, he can literally recite her weekend routine; he knows how hard it is for her to get men to like her, he knows how rarely she has sex (and how rarely she likes it), he knows her family. And maybe Pete and Jenna know a lot of that stuff, too, but Jack is the one who is so hard to please, and it's not like she wants to be loved for being a different person, but it's _hard_ for her to believe that he finds her appealing in that way. He would probably say no.

Still. The fact that she's even considering this, the fact that she thinks she could walk up to a man she loves and ask him to take a chance on her, is because of Jack. And not just because of his pep talks and less-insulting-than-last-time compliments, but because the confidence he's placed in her makes her feel like a bigger person. Jack has made her love him by coming to her for help, or even by not coming to her for help, but accepting it from her anyway.

It's gross sometimes how arrogant he can be, but if he were really like that all the time, she would hate him. Probably. But the fact that she doesn't must have to do with how he isn't really like that, at least with her. She remembers how obsessed he was, right from the start, with getting her approval. It didn't make sense -- that time he got hurt feelings when she banned him from the writer's room, long before they were close enough that he should have taken it personally. At the time she thought it was weird, and a little funny, but now when she remembers it, it touches her.

Then she thinks about the time he reassigned Liz Lemler to Connecticut, and the time he forgave her for bashing him in the paper, and the time he punched his sister for her, and the time he tried to promote her to his job. How shy her family made him, how concerned he got when she was almost pregnant, how he wanted to set her up with the talk show so she could have a better life and be happy, and God, she has to stop thinking about this while she's trying to go to sleep, because she didn't know she could feel this much for anyone.

Liz knows she has a harder time being that vulnerable with him, at least lately. She gets defensive, like Jack called her out on during their seven minutes in heaven, and she tries to hoard what little dignity she can muster on a daily basis. She's okay with being honest about her patheticness, but to just go and ask for his help with her feelings about things is too much. It's easier to wait for him to make a move. If she loses control, like she did with the talk show disaster, he'll be there, and a big part of her counts on that.

He has done some amazing things for her, making her believe that the depth of his loyalty and his selflessness will always be greater than she can predict. She can rely on Jack. She trusts Jack. More than anything she wants to trust Jack with this part of herself.

And that, in the end, is enough to make her do it.

 

 

v. _say the word_

"Lemon, do you like baseball?"

Jack stops by her office on his way home, one evening in early April. The writer's room is empty except for Frank and Toofer, who, seated facing the wall in opposite corners, appear to be in time out. Lemon herself is hunched over her laptop at her desk, no doubt contracting a serious neck injury in the same way she enfeebled her eyesight. When he enters the room, she looks up and considers his question as she rolls her shoulders.

"Yeah, sure. Of all sports, it's the one I don't understand the least."

"Uh, okay. I can work with that. I just received a pair of premium suite box seats from George Steinbrenner for opening day."

Her expression does not register an appropriate enthusiasm. "And you want me to go with you? Why not Danny?"

"Do I need a _reason_ now to prefer your company to that of an employee?"

He can swear she flushes, probably as she is calling up her ill-considered rage about the... black light incident. Whatever the cause, it is more fetching than she realizes, no doubt, but Jack has enough experience with women (and despite what some might say, this includes Lemon) to resist mentioning the objectively attractive effects of her anger. Not to sell himself short -- he could certainly get away with it -- but he has other tasks to accomplish.

"Last time I checked, I was also your employee, Jack."

He lets out an exasperated snort. "Lord, I thought we were past this by now. Let's be rational. Danny saw the Knicks with me last week; baseball games are less fast-paced and last several hours, requiring a heightened level of companionship, not to mention a better sense of humor, in one's guest; and George has promised, per my inquiry, that there will be free bottomless tubs of fried snacks."

Liz is on her feet rather abruptly. "Yes! I will go with you. When do we leave?"

Jack smirks and lifts her coat off the arm of the coach. "Next Tuesday. But come on, I'll walk you out."

On their way through the writer's room, Liz doesn't speak until she hits the light switch and the room goes dark. "You're done, idiots. Go home."

From Frank's corner, Jack can hear broken sobs, muffled against the wall. He shakes his head and ushers Liz into the hallway. "Sometimes you do me proud."

The night of the game, he picks her up at her apartment, where she insisted she had to change into something more comfortable. Privately, he wonders what could be more comfortable than work sneakers and TGS hoodie, but he is gratified when she emerges from the building in a relatively tasteful combination of sweater and jeans. He tells her this.

"Yeah, well. I just can't wait to drip chili dog all down it."

Their seats are along the first base line, alongside the Yankees dugout, Jack's personal preferred location. "Oh dude, you are _kidding_ me," Liz says as they proceed down the steps from their private entrance. She clutches the soft pretzel she acquired on their way in. "These are cushioned? Did that guy say we have _private bathrooms_?"

'That guy' is their personal concierge, name-tagged Alfonse, who stands rather stiffly, awaiting Jack's directive.

"Excuse me," Jack says. "Could you bring the lady a double serving of waffle fries? I'll have a Glenfiddich 18 year, neat. No, wait, do you have a Balvenie 17 year?"

The concierge is smiling, but Liz interrupts. "Oh, come on. We're not doing that whiskey and crab-cakes thing again. This is a _baseball game_ , Jack. Get a beer, like a normal person!"

Despite catching half of the icy stare Alfonse fixes on Lemon, Jack agrees to play along with her fantasy of blending into the crowd of sewage workers and vacuum salesmen clad in Derek Jeter apparel. "What do you offer?"

"Miller Lite, MGD, Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors, Stella Arquois, Becks --"

"Ah heh, stop right there. The Stella will be fine."

Alfonse nods sternly, leaving them to get settled in private.

"Dang, no wonder you like sports. These are some _sweet digs_! I've only ever been in the bleachers." Lemon sits down with relief, depositing her backpack (full of "alternative entertainments") under the seat.

("I'm offended you anticipate being bored enough to do sudoko while you're spending an evening with me," he'd told her in the car.

"Don't be," she said. "I've done sudoku while having sex."

"I'm quite sure that your bedroom activities with other men don't even compare to your public activities with me."

She grudgingly acquiesced.)

"I've always loved sports," Jack says, sitting beside her. "Even when I was a kid and I could only save up enough for the nosebleed section once or twice a season. I was too proud to accept Eddie's street racing winnings, since he would have expected me to cover him in the dog fights. Of course, those were Red Sox tickets. No one cares if you bribe your way into Yankee Stadium."

Jack props his legs out in front of him and stretches an arm across the back of Liz's seat. He sees her eye him sideways from behind her pretzel. "Make yourself comfortable," she mutters. But she settles back into her seat, her back just slightly brushing his forearm.

"Anyway, even you can't fail to enjoy yourself with these accommodations. You can practically smell the players."

"Eugh."

But she does watch them trot in from their warm up with a certain amount of interest. "Yeesh," she murmurs, and he gets the feeling she's admiring more than their pre-game energy. "Those are some thighs."

The concierge arrives with their order just in time for Jack to take a particularly long sip of his beer.

Six innings in, Lemon has exhausted her fried food capacity (an event in itself) and hasn't picked up her sudoku once. His attempt to teach her about the nigh theological beauty of the game of baseball went nowhere, but Jack is curiously undisturbed by this. Instead he's a little buzzed, mostly content, unusually aware of the way the stadium lights show up against the blue-grey of the city dusk, and warmed by the comfortable turn of their conversation.

"You don't think you might want to talk to him more, now that you found him?" Liz is asking.

"I don't know what I could have to say to him, really," Jack says. "I've despised Jimmy Donaghy for most of my life, but Milton has nothing to do with that."

"And you haven't told Colleen."

He sighs. "No."

Liz is looking at him with sympathy, an expression of hers that he is familiar with. He wonders if there are other people whose pity he might accept with such little protest -- and, truthfully, take such consolation in. Not many, he knows. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, they watch the game for a moment.

"Did, uh, Nancy know your parents? When you were in high school?"

"No. I didn't take girls home in high school. I mean, I didn't take them _home_ , but..."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it."

"Let's just say I had my share of seven minutes in heaven. And not, of course -- " he waves his hand, "anything like our own trip into the make-out closet."

"Of course."

"We did have a good laugh about it the other week, however. Some of the kids we knew in high school... God. But I didn't have to fingertag her this time -- she Skyped me first." There's a note of hope -- or pride -- he can hear in his voice, and he waits for her reaction.

But instead the conversation lags, and after a few minutes, Liz starts fiddling with the zipper of her bag, reaching for her alternative entertainment, no doubt. Jack is reluctant to lose her to whatever senior citizen math game she has in mind. He sits back, automatically putting his arm behind her again. "Come on," he says, "we came to watch the game. If you're bored, we can walk back to the concession stands during the stretch."

Liz rolls her eyes, sitting sideways in her seat so that when she sets the bag back down, her leg hits his thigh. Not thinking, Jack cups her knee and presses. "It's just another inning. Or are you already weary of being among real Americans?"

"Um," Liz starts, but he's managed to fluster her somehow. "I -- no, fine. I don't hate real Americans. Mister expensive-Scotch-at-baseball-games."

"Okay." There's a strange pause. After a second he removes his hand from her knee, curious, but the tension remains, and intrigues him. He's been aware in some respect, throughout their friendship, that he touches Liz too much for her comfort, but he's a tactile man. It comes naturally. Nevertheless, Liz has arranged herself primly on the far side of her seat. Jack clears his throat.

"Well, I... am gonna go to the gift shops," Liz says at last. "I want to throw away some money on a PayRod snow globe."

Jack stands up. "I shall accompany you. Though without an intent to purchase."

"Are you sure? I'm sure we could find something _just right_ for you in pinstripes."

"Ha, Lemon."

They find a souvenir cart just outside the box suites entrance. "Oh, here we go. Some Yankee cuff-links," Liz says, lifting them off their rack.

"Do you not care for Nancy?" Jack asks suddenly.

"What?" Her pitch jumps from jokey to annoyed, and she glances around them, exchanging looks with the bored cart attendant. "That's -- extremely out of nowhere, Jack."

"Well, I'm trying to think of why you would get so tetchy when she comes up in conversation. It was Nancy, right?"

"Look, Jack, you're being way too sensitive. It wasn't Nancy. It wasn't anything."

"I'm not angry. I want to talk about it if you have something to say. We were having a conversation, and it ended. You still think I'm preying on a married woman?"

Liz visibly straightens. For a breath, she says nothing, and then exhales with a shaky sigh.

"Okay. I'm gonna say something here, Jack, and you don't ever have to think about it again, okay? Okay. I'm gonna say something."

"Okay," Jack responds. He braces himself for -- he doesn't know.

"I do not like Nancy. But not because of Nancy. I also do not like Avery. And I don't like Elisa, and I don't like Phoebe. I... I do like Cici. And I liked Elisa okay at the time, although I _never_ liked Phoebe, and I was dead right about that. And Nancy, she is fine. She is a nice person. But I _don't like_ her, Jack." Though she delivers most of this rant to the cement wall behind Jack's shoulder, now she looks at his face, almost pleading.

"I don't like her because you're really in love with her, and I'm really in love with you. So no, I don't like hearing about her, and I don't think she's great for you, but I am pretty biased about that, as I just said. And I said it."

She stops as abruptly as she started, looking at the floor, and slams the cuff-links on the souvenir cart.

The cart attendant stands with dropped jaw.

Jack's first response: total shock. His second response: productivity.

"Are you asking if I want to be with you?" he says. "Yes."

"I -- what?" Liz's gaze is suddenly riveted on him.

"Yes."

She looks like her brain has momentarily ceased function. Her mouth opens and closes, and she is just looking at him.

"Lemon," Jack says, stepping closer to take one of her hands and hold it between his.

His movements seem to wake her, because she grips his fingers, reaches for his shoulders, and then Lemon is in his arms, their mouths together, as Jack tries to process the feeling of her body close against his, the eagerness of her hands on his neck. He kisses her a second time, a third. They break apart, and he says her name again, more softly.

"God, you surprised me," she mutters. He traces the line of her jaw with his mouth, and makes her skin go to gooseflesh when he chuckles.

"I could say the same thing."

"I didn't know anybody could surprise you," she says. "Definitely not me."

The most obvious answer is to kiss her again. But after:

"We... should move away from the souvenir cart."

"Good thinking."

And so, a brisk walk away, behind the wall of the entrance to the men's room:

"You really had no idea?" she asks. She is ruffling the hair on the back of his head, and Jack has his hands along her hips, just underneath the fabric of her sweater.

"I don't think you are as transparent as you think," he tells her. "Or I've been too ready to dismiss it. I certainly did not have plans to attempt to... reveal myself to you, anytime soon."

"I've been totally convinced you, you know. Weren't into it."

Jack rarely enjoys realizing his own ignorance, nor did he relish the uncertainty he held for so long about the woman in his arms, but as he reads the emotions in Liz's eyes, he has never been more happy to dwell on his misconceptions. He lets his hands slide up her back, watching her face. He feels her rib cage expand as she takes another long breath.

She says, "I didn't mean to say you have bad taste in ladies. I've just been stupid and jealous, and I really, really don't want you get married or have kids. To anyone else. I want to have kids with you. But not right away. And now I'm sounding super desperate and crazy."

"Shh," he says. "I understand."

He doesn't want to stop her from talking -- he'd never truly expected to hear these words from her mouth -- but he is concerned she's upsetting herself unduly. So he pulls her close again, one hand cupping the back of her neck, and kisses her more deliberately. She kisses him back. The talking stops for a while.

Jack is very ready to stay here forever when he notices her shiver, and remembers the stadium and the parking garage and the chill of April nightfall in the city. Relinquishing her from his arms, he is delighted when she slips her hand into his.

"Let's go," Jack says.

 

 

\- end -

 

 


End file.
